About Me

My four decade publishing career has been a continuous post-graduate education. This blog is intended as an on going first hand account, eclectic and opinionated in nature, on a wide range of interests, from business and politics to music, literature and theater, with some family history along the way.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Five Hundred and Still Counting

Only six months
ago that I wrote about the eighth “anniversary” of this blog. When I posted my
last entry BlogSpot reminded me that that was my 500th entry.The reasons I write were fairly well summed
up by what I wrote in that anniversary piece, part of which is included
below.

When I started
this, who knew I’d keep going.I
certainly didn’t.It was an experiment
which still makes me wonder, why?Perhaps
it’s because I sometimes don’t even know what I think until I put my hands on a
keyboard.Writing requires thought,
working things out in a way speaking does not, and certainly thinking is
completely unnecessary (in fact thinking is the enemy) when forwarding
mindless email chains.

A consequence
of writing in this space is “thought accountability.”I have to take responsibility for the views
expressed here which change over time. If others tap into my stories,
photographs, and views, benefit by them, identify with them in some way, or are
bored by them and never return, so be it. I chose not to support a comment section in
the blog, but one can reach me at lacunaemusing@gmail.com.

One thing I
mentioned below is my intent to lessen the focus on family history, not only
because of

Age 9

privacy issues, but I’ve covered the essentials.At the same time I am purging some of the
physical “stuff” associated with that history.The older one gets, the more things own you. In that regard, the George Eastman Museumin Rochester is enthusiastically accepting
much of the memorabilia I have from my family’s photographic studio, the history of which I have detailed in this blog. It will be suitable home for those materials, accessible to future generations.Once they have received everything,
catalogued it all, and digitize much of it, I’ll provide a link in some future
entry.

With the
completion of that donation, I will be through with not only writing about
those pieces of my family’s history, but putting the physical evidence in
strong hands for preservation.Maybe if
I didn’t write this blog I might have been less proactive in this regard,
another benefit.

So, from my
“anniversary” issue….

Can it be?Eight
years writing this blog.That’s the
amount of time I spent in grammar school. Those eight years in PS 90 seem to be
light years in the distant past, but at the time they were an eternity.And four years in high school were equally
drawn out, anticipating adulthood, the point at which I could leave the turmoil
of my parent’s home.Time accelerated in
college, came on full speed during my career and raising a family, and now it’s
a year in a blink.

I think I’ve been true to my “mission statement” in this
space -- essentially an eclectic, kaleidoscopic diary. There have been 480
entries thus far, enough to fill at least five printed volumes.Content has morphed into more about theatre,
literature and still some politics and economics, but less about family
history.I’ve pretty much covered that,
and the older I get the more I’d like to move on.

Nonetheless, I still write about things which are fairly
personal, always hesitating about what I “put out there.”As this blog has evolved, so has the digital
world, data mining for all sorts of nefarious reasons.And the digital world has moved way beyond
blogs to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumbler, social networks where a
momentary impulse can be just thrown out as a developed thought.Not here.Traffic building has not been my intent.According to Google, in eight years there have been 86,021 page views.
Some web sites do that in a minute. Most land here via searches (not for me,
but topics I write about) and frequently those are image searches as I’ve
incorporated countless photographs in this space

Without going into details of the latter, it is truly a
twist of fate that I made it through that voyage without ending up in the
freezer with the flowers (a favorite repository for those who die on
cruises).Of course I didn’t realize
that I was so vulnerable at the time (although we’re all vulnerable all the
time). I suppose that is another reason I write this blog:it is a record and it allows me to reflect on
my life and matters of living, to have a documented trail.I go to it when memory fails.

I add this
coda, something I came across in my files while searching materials for the
George Eastman Museum.My father had
saved it and obviously so did I.It is
the first letter I ever received -- about a month after I was born, from the
War Price and Rationing Board of the Office of Price Administration during WW
II.This presumably contained ration
coupons – a bit of history including the address of my parents’ first home, an
apartment house which is still standing.